I once went to buy a pair of RayBan sunglasses. When I went to pay, the woman at the counter leaned in conspiratorially.
“Would you like to buy this cleaning kit for your new sunglasses?” she asked.
Before I had a chance to tell her that in fact I work in direct marketing, and that she should try her useless upsell on somebody else, she continued:
“The cleaning kit is only 9.95 euro, but we have a special promotion, where if you buy it you get a 20% discount on anything in the store. That’s a 50 euro savings on your sunglasses.”
What happened next is what I believe they call “cognitive dissonance”:
The twin angels of Refusing To Be Upsold and of A Perfectly Rational Argument vied for supremacy of my soul.
After a brief but fierce struggle, the Angel of A Perfectly Rational Argument won out.
“Uhh… I guess I’ll take the cleaning kit?” I said, still trying to figure out how I was being scammed, and how this made any sense for the sunglasses store.
I never really did figure it out, except to think that maybe it allowed them to discount their sunglasses and make people feel like they were getting a bargain… without actually discounting their sunglasses.
I though of this this morning when, in my usual rounds of snooping on other marketers, I checked out Ryan Lee’s current offer.
I don’t really understand what exactly Ryan is selling — he’s helping people publish a “micro book,” whatever that is.
I do know that the cost for his 2-week “Micro Book Accelerator” is $895. Included in the price are a number of bonuses, one being a book cover designed by Ryan’s personal crack designer (“a $999 value”).
So far, so normal.
But then you get down to the bottom of the sales page, where the checkout links are.
There’s a full pay option for $895…
There’s a 3-pay for $319 per month…
And then there’s an option to “join and get the full MBX experience (only without the cover design) for a BIG discount (almost $600).”
I have no doubt that most people who join are joining Ryan’s full experience, cover included.
But I thought this last option was interesting:
A way to discount the offer… by not discounting the offer. By respecting the people who buy the full package, and by making everyone else a different offer, and a credible reason why that new offer is significantly discounted (that’s what connected this in my mind to the sunglasses story above).
Maybe you say this is just a downsell. Maybe. But I’ve never seen it done like this, and to me at least, it was new.
Anyways, since I very much like to take interesting ideas and apply them in this newsletter, I decided to put this one to work as well.
So if you like, you can now sign up to get my Simple Money Emails training (minus the swipe file and the bonus 7 Deadly Email Sins and Quick and Dirty Emails trainings) at a significant “Perfectly Rational Argument” discount from the usual $197 price.
This new offer is only $77, $120 off the price that the complete Simple Money Emails program sells for.
Since this is an experiment, and kinda makes me uncomfortable, I am restricting it to only the first 20 people who take me up on it. And one way or another, I will close down this offer this Saturday at 8:31pm CET.
If you want the “Perfectly Rational Argument” discount, here’s where to take me up on this new offer while it’s still live: